Breadcrumbs

If Toys Could Talk

THEME: Over the past century the items we use have changed significantly, as have the nature and composition of our waste.

GOAL: Students will understand how the products we use today differ from those used by our parents and grandparents.

METHOD: Interviewing and discussion

SUBJECTS: Language arts, social studies

SKILLS: Analyzing, comparing, interviewing

MATERIALS: Pictures or examples of antique toys and modern-day toys

TIME: 2 hours, plus additional time for interviews

Background

Most products, including toys, have changed significantly over the years. At one time most toys were made from natural materials such as wood. Handmade country toys like whirligigs, bean shooters, yo-yos, and tops were very popular. Over time, commercially manufactured toys such as wooden Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys became available. In the 1960s, plastic toys began to dominate the market, and the demand for hula hoops, frisbees, Lego, toy guns, and plastic models increased steadily. Today, battery-operated and electronic toys, along with video and computer games, are quite popular. Changes in the way toys are made, in what they can do, and in the materials used to produce them reflect changes in our society.

Getting Started

Make a list of the students' favorite toys. What are most of the toys made of?

Procedure

Ask the students if they have had a favorite toy that didn't last very long. What happened to it? What was it made of? Ask students to bring in toys that are broken or to be thrown away. What are they made of? How long did they last? Are there any patterns or similarities between the broken toys? Discuss how some of these toys could be redesigned to last longer. How might these toys be fixed or made into new toys?

Have the students interview an older person about toys that were available when they were children. Another option is to invite a senior citizen to class for a group interview or to take a field trip to a nursing home or senior citizen center. Have the class develop a list of questions that the students might ask the person they decide to interview. Questions could include:

What was your favorite toy when you were little?

How many toys did you have? What were they made of?

Who made them? Where did you get them?

How long did they last? Could they be fixed if they broke?

Would it have been cheaper to fix an old toy or buy a new one? Why

Could you fix a broken toy at home, or did someone else have to fix it?

If a broken toy could not be repaired, what did you do with it?

How are the toys sold today different from those that you had?

Have the students answer their own questions. Discuss the differences between their answers and those of the people they interviewed. Ask the students to make some generalizations about their lives and those of their ancestors. What do these differences imply? How might these differences affect our natural resources?

Extensions

Take a field trip to a museum or a historical society to look at their old toy collection.

Find out how some old toys were made and make them in class. Students could also invent new toys made out of natural materials.

Have each student choose to research and write a report about toys that were popular in a different time period or culture (e.g., Native American toys, Egyptian toys).

Tool Name: Baynote, Inc. Recommendations

The information below summarizes privacy policy terms related to content recommendations on Mass.Gov and is excerpted from the full Mass.gov privacy policy.

Purpose: Displays relevant content recommendation based on the site usage pattern of all users of Mass.Gov. If Personalization is enabled (the default setting), your personal site usage pattern today and on prior visits to Mass.gov will be displayed to you and will also be a factor in determining personalized relevant recommendations for you.

Data Collected: A random anonymous unique identifier is assigned and tracked for each user of the website. This identifier is sent to our vendor, Baynote, when you view a page, open a document or click a link on Mass.Gov. Our vendor then analyzes the specific content that was viewed and provides content recommendations to similar content that you may find useful. A full description of what data Baynote collects and how it uses this data is available at http://www.baynote.com/baynote-services-privacy-policy/. Please note that the tool uses persistent cookies. These cookies will be Mass.gov domain cookies and not Baynote domain cookies. The cookies will store information related to a user’s Mass.gov Web site usage, including the URL and title of sites recently visited and the random anonymous unique identifier assigned to the user. In general, and as described in more detail in Baynote’s service privacy policy linked to above, Baynote only uses the personalized information it gathers to provide recommendation services and display past usage for Mass.Gov users and will not share this information with any third parties, including advertisers. The information collected will not affect content you may see on sites unaffiliated with Mass.Gov.

Express Opt Out: If personalization of recommendations based on the content you view is not desired, or you do not wish to display a list of recently viewed Mass.gov pages, you may turn personalization off. You can do this by using either the switch located below in this privacy policy or an identical switch located directly above the content recommendations and recently viewed content boxes displayed on the Mass.gov site. Once you turn off personalization, your content recommendations will be based on the overall traffic patterns of all users of Mass.Gov and they will not specifically take into account your own personal usage patterns. If you turn off personalization, information collected by this Tool that is associated with your content usage will be deleted from your cookies, and no further information about your content usage will be sent to our vendor.

Disabling personalization will affect both content recommendations and recently viewed page links. If you turn off personalization, this “off” setting will persist as you browse Mass.Gov and during any future sessions. The opt-out setting is stored in a persistent cookie on your computer. The setting will remain in effect so long as you use the same computer with the same Internet browser. If you delete the cookie that contains the opt-out setting or use a different browser or computer, personalization will be enabled and you will need to disable it again on your next visit, if desired.

For our full privacy policy, please close this window and see the Site Policies or Privacy Policy link in the footer of the page.